Security An End to the Great Data-Storage DebatePeter Lucas Weaning merchants from their ingrained practice of storing payment card data won’t be easy, but security experts conclude it must be done. Meanwhile, encryption technology, though growing in popularity, is not invulnerable. Having survived database breaches at high-profile retailers and merchant …

Debit card interchange fees would take a draconian cut under two proposals that the Federal Reserve Board floated on Thursday. Both would set caps of 12 cents per transaction, caps that would take most of the profit out of many transactions, especially signature debit. The board also left open the …

The U.S. Department of Justice and seven states on Monday sued Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. over their merchant-acceptance policies, especially those that restrict discounting for other cards or payment forms. Visa and MasterCard immediately announced a settlement, but AmEx said it would fight. The antitrust lawsuit …

Reflecting trends seen by its larger network competitors, Discover Financial Services on Monday reported modest growth in credit card volumes and bigger growth in debit. Discover, in releasing earnings for its third fiscal 2010 quarter ended Aug. 31, also said that its 4-year-old effort to recruit merchant acquirers to sign …

Transaction volumes are rising on the automated clearing house, but a recently released survey shows a nasty side effect of this growth is a rise in the volume of disputed transactions. Some 63% of processors and financial institutions reported they handled more disputed, or unauthorized, payments last year than in …

The so-called Durbin Amendment that soon will be law could cut Bank of America Corp.’s debit card revenues by up to nearly 80%, the nation’s largest debit card issuer estimates. Two major prepaid card processors that are planning IPOs and rely on growing interchange income, however, seem likely to escape …

Not always the best of friends, the National Retail Federation and Visa Inc. saw fit on Wednesday to jointly announce that Visa had clarified its card-number storage rules to affirm that merchants may present a truncated or disguised number on a transaction receipt for dispute resolution in place of a …

Acculynk Inc., a processor of PIN debit transactions that take place on merchant Web sites, announced this week it is adding the capability of processing credit and signature-debit transactions as well. The new service, called PaySecure Plus, will rely on processor Elavon, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, to handle credit …

A new approach to facilitating electronic payments with health-care service providers is being developed by Redwood City, Calif.-based Health Team Inc. Founded earlier this year by executives with backgrounds in online banking and bill-payment services, Health Team developed the HealthRails.com network on concepts similar to online bill pay. Currently in …

A delegation from 7-Eleven Inc., including the convenience-store giant's chief executive and a handful of franchisees, cast the card-interchange issue as a matter of grassroots politics on Wednesday by personally delivering to lawmakers in the nation's capital petitions with nearly 1.7 million signatures calling for interchange regulation. The petitions, which …